Chapter 6 - The Woman Who Wanted My Children
Victoria Voss looked like someone who had never been told no.
She descended the staircase slowly, wearing a cream suit and pearls.
No raised voice.
No dramatic entrance.
She didn’t need one.
Roman stood.
“Withdraw the petition.”
“No.”
“Mother.”
“You are emotional.”
“I am warning you.”
“I raised you. Your warnings stopped impressing me around age thirteen.”
I almost liked her.
Then she looked at me.
Almost.
“Miss Hayes.”
“Pamela.”
“You have known these children for less than a week.”
“I carried them for seven months.”
Her expression did not change.
“And then you lost them.”
Roman stepped forward.
“Enough.”
I held up my hand.
“No.”
I looked at Victoria.
“Say what you came to say.”
She studied me.
“Roman is not thinking clearly.”
“Because?”
“Because he feels guilty.”
Roman’s face tightened.
“He believes his brother’s death makes him responsible for what happened to you.”
“That isn’t why—”
Victoria ignored him.
“You have no stable residence. No employment. Significant debt. No experience raising children.”
“Because someone stole them.”
“And the court will consider that.”
She paused.
“But courts consider current circumstances too.”
The words hurt because they contained truth.
I had a tiny apartment.
No job.
Medical debt.
No savings.
Victoria continued.
“The children have security here. Tutors. physicians. resources.”
“They’re one.”
“Exactly.”
I stood.
“Then why not let me be part of that?”
Her eyes hardened.
“Because mothers who appear suddenly tend to disappear suddenly.”
Something in her tone changed.
This was not about money.
“Who left you?”
Roman looked toward his mother.
Victoria’s jaw tightened.
I understood.
“Roman’s father?”
Silence.
Roman said quietly, “Pamela.”
“No.”
I kept my eyes on Victoria.
“You think I’m her.”
“My husband abandoned three children and me for another woman.”
There it was.
“He returned years later wanting forgiveness.”
“And you refused.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
That surprised her.
“I’m not your husband.”
“No.”
“I didn’t choose to leave my children.”
“No.”
“They were stolen.”
Her expression shifted.
Barely.
“But you filed anyway.”
“I protected my grandchildren.”
“They’re also my children.”
Victoria looked at Roman.
“And legally, what are they to you now?”
The question hit all of us.
Roman had no biological relation.
His adoption paperwork was apparently fraudulent because the babies had been kidnapped.
Legally, his status could become complicated.
Victoria was trying to keep the children connected to the Voss family through custody before the fraudulent adoption collapsed.
Suddenly her motive made sense.
Still wrong.
But understandable.
Roman said, “I don’t need you to protect me.”
“I am protecting them.”
Pamela.
Roman.
Victoria.
Three adults loving the same children and preparing to destroy one another over how.
I looked toward the babies playing on the rug.
Leo handed a toy to Miles.
Lily crawled toward Roman.
This was madness.
“Stop.”
Both Vosses looked at me.
“I’m not fighting you.”
Victoria frowned.
“What?”
“I’m not taking the children away from Roman.”
Roman stared at me.
I continued.
“He is their father.”
Victoria’s expression softened slightly.
“Biology does not change fourteen months of midnight feedings, doctor visits, fevers, first teeth, nightmares, or loving them.”
Roman looked away.
His eyes were wet.
I had never seen that before.
“I want my rights restored.”
I looked at Victoria.
“All of them.”
“But I also want Roman’s protected.”
“That may not be legally possible.”
“Then we find a way.”
Victoria studied me.
“You would share custody?”
“I would share parenting.”
“With an unmarried man you barely know?”
Roman almost smiled.
“That sounded judgmental.”
She ignored him.
I said, “I know enough.”
“Do you?”
“I know he stayed when they cried. I know he knows Miles hates peas, Leo sleeps holding a bear by one ear, and Lily refuses naps unless someone hums.”
Victoria’s expression changed again.
Roman stared at me.
“I know he loves them.”
I swallowed.
“And I know they love him.”
The room became quiet.
Victoria sat.
For the first time, she looked tired.
“What do you want?”
“A legal agreement.”
Roman interrupted.
“No.”
I turned.
“What now?”
“I don’t want an agreement that makes me their occasional visitor.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then?”
I looked at the children.
“We become a family.”
Silence.
Victoria blinked.
Roman stared.
I realized how that sounded.
“I don’t mean marriage.”
Roman’s mouth twitched.
“I hadn’t proposed.”
“Good.”
“Your disappointment is crushing.”
Victoria actually smiled.
Very slightly.
I continued.
“We create a guardianship arrangement while the courts correct everything. We live close enough that the children never feel divided.”
Roman said, “You can stay here.”
Victoria raised an eyebrow.
I ignored her.
“Temporarily.”
“Of course.”
“Separate rooms.”
“Naturally.”
Victoria said dryly, “I feel unnecessary now.”
For the first time since she entered, tension broke.
Then she looked at me.
“I’ll withdraw the petition.”
Roman stared.
“You will?”
“Yes.”
She turned to Pamela.
“But I have conditions.”
“Of course you do.”
“Therapy.”
I stiffened.
“For you.”
My face heated.
“I’m not crazy.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Victoria’s voice softened.
“You believed your children were dead for fourteen months, discovered they were alive in a restaurant, learned your father was alive, became the target of a criminal network, and nearly got shot twice.”
She paused.
“If you tell me you do not need help processing that, then I will reconsider whether my petition was premature.”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
“Fine.”
“Financial independence.”
“I want that too.”
“Security training.”
Roman nodded immediately.
“Yes.”
I looked at him.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Very much.”
Victoria stood.
“Then we agree.”
She looked at the children.
“Family.”
The word sounded unfamiliar in her mouth.
But not unpleasant.
Over the next three months, life changed.
Hart was indicted on kidnapping, conspiracy, medical fraud, attempted murder, and dozens of federal charges.
Meridian Biomedical collapsed beneath investigations.
Victims came forward from across the country.
Dr. Bishop recovered.
My father entered witness protection temporarily while cooperating with prosecutors.
I did not forgive him.
Not fully.
But I began speaking to him.
That was a start.
Roman helped me enroll in restaurant management courses because I admitted I wanted something beyond waitressing.
I refused his money.
He paid tuition anonymously.
I found out.
We argued for two days.
He apologized.
Then did it again through a scholarship foundation.
I threatened him with bodily harm.
He seemed delighted.
The triplets changed too.
Once they started speaking, they apparently decided silence had been overrated.
Leo said everything.
Miles asked “why” approximately four hundred times per hour.
Lily discovered the word “no” and used it like political philosophy.
And Roman…
Roman became less terrifying.
At least to me.
One evening, I found him asleep on the nursery floor.
Lily lay across his chest.
Leo slept beside his arm.
Miles had somehow placed a stuffed giraffe on Roman’s face.
I took a photograph.
His eyes opened.
“Delete that.”
“Never.”
“Pamela.”
“I’m framing it.”
“You are becoming too comfortable.”
I sat beside him.
“You like me comfortable.”
He went quiet.
“Yes.”
The room changed.
Not dramatically.
Softly.
His eyes held mine.
My pulse changed.
“Roman.”
“I know.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to say this is complicated.”
“I was going to say the giraffe is still on your face.”
He removed it.
I laughed.
Then he kissed me.
Brief.
Careful.
Giving me every chance to move away.
I didn’t.
When we separated, he whispered, “Complicated?”
“Extremely.”
“Regret?”
I looked at our children sleeping around us.
“Ask me tomorrow.”
He smiled.
Then the nursery monitor on the shelf blinked.
Donovan’s voice came through.
“Roman.”
Roman answered.
“What?”
“We have a problem.”
My stomach dropped.
Some instincts never leave.
“What kind?”
Donovan hesitated.
“Hart escaped federal transport.”
Roman stood immediately.
The warmth vanished.
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
I looked at my children.
Roman looked at me.
Then Donovan added:
“And Pamela…”
“What?”
“We intercepted a message.”
Static.
Then Hart’s recorded voice filled the nursery.
“You took everything from me.”
A pause.
“So now I’m taking back the only evidence that matters.”
My blood froze.
The babies.
Roman grabbed his weapon.
The estate alarms began screaming.
May you like
And before I could reach the nursery door, every light in the house went dark.
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